Rory beamed royally and raised a muddy shoe. Scowling, Toby cupped his hands once more. That left him alone, but he jumped, caught a grip, and swung himself up unaided, sword and all. He found Rory waiting for him, while the other three had moved on ahead.
"You are definitely useful, Muscles." The silver eyes twinkled devilishly. "Too good to waste."
"What does that mean?"
"It means you are promising material. You have strength and a certain raw brute courage, even if your brains leave much to be desired. I'll turn you into a rebel yet! Field craft, horsemanship, swordsmanship, unarmed combat — a month or two should do it. We'll make you the terror of the Sassenachs from the Mull of Galloway to John o' Groat's."
"I'll choose my own enemies, thank you. And my own friends."
MacDonald shook his head. "Lummox, you have already chosen your enemies, and they plan to hang you. Now you need friends, don't you?"
Toby scowled and said nothing. Some men were strong enough to stand alone.
"You don't want any more enemies, do you?"
"Is that a threat?"
"Could be."
It was time to change the subject. "Listen. I've been thinking."
"A novel experience?"
Toby's fists clenched. "If you're so smart, Master MacDonald of Glencoe, then explain something to me. Ten years ago, King Nevil put a price on Lady Valda's head. Has she ever been pardoned?"
"Not as far as I know."
"Then if she's not on Nevil's side, perhaps she's on your side — the rebels' side."
Rory sobered. "Never! She's the sort of help that nobody needs." He strode in silence for a moment, as if choosing his words carefully. "All right — here's how I see it. Any hexer is inherently evil. Valda may still be opposed to Nevil, but Oreste certainly isn't. In that case, he's come hunting her for his master and you're mixed up in some sort of demonic duel. If she's made her peace with the king of England, then she's hand in glove with Oreste, which is even worse."
"Doing what?"
"I wish I knew! Hunting down Fergan? That would not be difficult for them. Either of them could find him easily, and then destroy him. Demons are his worst danger. It's no secret — the reason we Scots tend to lose when we fight the English is not just that they have more men and better guns. The Sassenachs often use gramarye, too, and we've never had many hexers in the hills. Theirs is the sort of help you're better off without. Fergan feels that way, or I assume he does, because of the way his father died. You know about that?"
"King Malcolm died at Leethoul, the Battle of the Century." Toby had managed to forget most of the history Hamish's father had taught him; that fragment must have escaped.
"Eyewitnesses claimed he drew his dirk as the fighting started and cut his own throat. Perhaps it's not true, but it could well be. A single demon can't destroy a whole army bodily, but it can swing a battle!
"So even if Valda has dreams of raising an army here to carry on her fight with Nevil, whatever that fight is, I don't want anything to do with her, and I'm certain that Fergan doesn't either. If we won with her help, we'd probably end up wishing we hadn't, and be in a worse state than before." Rory wiped rain from his face. He was very familiar with his king's thinking.
"I don't know what she's up to, but I'm sure I would hate it. One possibility is that she's come to the Highlands to harvest some more demons. Father Lachlan says she has at least four already. With that much power at her command, she can enslave any elemental she can locate, understand? And not just elementals — spirits, even tutelaries!"
"Tutelaries aren't demons!"
"They can be made into demons! They can be enslaved, ripped from their locales… And tutelaries are more… I suppose 'sophisticated' would be the right word — Father Lachlan can explain this better than I can. He says when tutelaries are perverted they make even deadlier demons than simple elementals do. Just because we've never had many adepts here in the hills, we still have more native spirits than the more populated parts of Europe do. You've heard of the siege of Oban? It wasn't the armies that decided that — it was when York's demons overcame the tutelary that the town fell, and the demons roamed the streets, burning people and tearing them apart. So Valda and Oreste between them can do more damage around the Highlands than whole regiments of fusiliers. I just hope they are enemies still, and not partners!"
Toby almost wished he had not asked, but it was a pleasant change to have the rebel drop his flippancy and address him as an adult. It tied in with some of what Father Lachlan had hinted about his motives. Meg had stopped and was waiting for them, but he asked anyway:
"So what's your interest in me, sir? Where do I come into this?"
Rory cocked an eyebrow at him. "Valda wants you as a lover, of course! Lucky lad! Are you willing?"
"Never!"
"No? Quite certain? Don't you lust at all to fondle that pale aristocratic flesh?"
"No!"
"Ha! Any woman scorned can be a dangerous enemy, Longdirk, and that one is hell in a basket! You seem to have a knack for collecting enemies. Don't you think you need all the friends you can get?" With a laugh, the rebel pushed on up the slope to rejoin Father Lachlan.
"Isn't he wonderful?" Meg sighed.
"Wonderful?" That was not a word Toby would have used to describe the man in question.
"Oh, yes! He's a real gentleman!"
"And Lady Valda is a real lady!" Toby snapped.
CHAPTER SIX
The snow had turned back to sleet and then to mere rain. The travelers had reached the pass, a windswept moor flanked by steep hills on either hand. Clouds streamed low overhead, and wind thrashed the heather.
"See the burn?" Hamish exclaimed. "It's flowing the same way we're going! It's leading us!"
"I wish I could move that fast!" Meg sighed.
"Well, it means we're going downhill… Toby? What'ch you looking at?"
Toby had stopped. Everyone looked where he was staring. "Those rocks? You see anything odd there?"
No one commented until Father Lachlan said:
"What do you see, my son?"
"I think I see a hob."
"Indeed? I see nothing, but my eyes are not as good as they were. Anyone else see it?"
"Just rocks," Rory said. "What does a hob look like?"
"Nothing at all when I look straight," Toby admitted. "But out of the corner of my eye… a sort of shimmer. It's right by that pointed one at the moment. It's the way the hob looks, back in the glen."
Hamish squeaked. "I never saw the hob in the glen!"
"I did, sometimes."
"Where?" His eyes were wide, not wanting to disbelieve his hero, but worried that he was being kidded.
"Several places. Outside the schoolhouse a few times. At the games, once — finding out what we were all up to, I suppose. It's nosy!"
"If that one's just watching us," Father Lachlan said, "then I think we should just proceed. Staring may alarm it."
He shepherded them onward. They moved faster than before, edging away from the rocks. The shimmer flitted to another boulder.
"I expect it's merely curious," the friar continued soothingly. "It won't be a hob, not up here, just a wild elemental. They're usually called specters in mountains. Those that inhabit groves of trees are dryads. Bogies in bogs, naiads when they live in water… I doubt if there's any significant difference between the various types."
"Why not a hob?" Toby asked.
"Hobs have some experience with people. But to see any immortal is unusual. This is very interesting! Of course Fillan knew you, so it let you see it. But a wild elemental is another matter altogether! I am truly surprised that you can see it, my son, and more surprised that it is interested in you, because it obviously must be. Most curious."